Thank you to NetGalley for giving me access to this book's ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

"Devouring Tomorrow" had all the elements to be a perfect read for me (short stories, food, and science fiction), but unfortunately, it fell short in execution...

I imagine that many of the ideas in each story will surprise a lot of readers. However, for those who have watched Black Mirror or enjoy consuming dystopian/science fiction content (specifically the film Antiviral by Brandon Cronenberg, Crimes of the Future by David Cronenberg, the book Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa, Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, the anime The Promised Neverland, the animated series Love, Death & Robots, or Scavengers Reign), none of the narratives were truly out of the box.

Additionally, I found the heavy reliance on contemporary pop culture references to be a drawback. While they initially make the book feel fresh and relevant, they also risk dating it quickly, making it feel tied to a specific moment in time...

This might be a great read for those new to science fiction who are looking for a more youthful and casual tone—tragically, that’s not my case.

the stories are super short and smack-ya-in-the-guts punchy. i loved how the authors not only played with genre, they also played with form. the story told in yelp—sorry, ‘screech’—reviews was one of my favourites. it could be argued that the stories, and the collection as a whole, are too short but with the state of the world being what it is it was nice to read something that said what it needed to and didn’t fluff about in the process.

Devouring tomorrow

Devouring Tomorrow is a collection of short stories/essays exploring food and eating based on our current trajectory or water and food security.

The stories are full of dystopia, and themes around the climate crisis, genetically modified foods, nature vs. humanity, resource availability/class, and scarcity.

Food and water is essential to life, it’s culture, it’s art and what we eat, how we get it, how we grow and consume it defines our society. Due to climate change the way we access and interact with food could unpredictably change, and this anthology of stories summarises where these writers think the world is going.

This book answers questions such as “what if water is the currency?”, “is it cannibalism to eat a clone?”, “what if lab grown meat gained sentience?“, “would you give up the ability to go out at night to allow robotic pollinators to fill the skies?” and offers potential futures on who we will be.

Each story is only a few pages long - and whilst this can be binged over a few days, I would recommend reading a few stories at a time over a month as after a while it’s a bit bleak to read about and slightly repetitive (through theme not content). I could have read more about some of them - especially the ones below, but I have a degree in environmental geography and found this super intriguing read.

Some of my favourites:
🍬 I Want Candy

Written in a really fun review format for a restaurant that serves ridiculous dishes such as a “prosecco ventilator and protein foam”. A restaurant so excessive and expensive that exists against a backdrop of scarscity and poverty. Postive reviews from the elite talking about how life changing it is, but after a while you see reviews from one user who is living on government rations who’s posts keep getting removed.

🥡Succulent
Ordering takeaway named after celebs because it is in fact their flesh you are ordering - well… their clones. Amusing commentary around dishes and celeb names, but this is all about the ethics of consent and meat eating. Celebs have licensed thier genes for protein synthesisers to be grown into meat, and giving more consent than animals have, but some consumers disagree with the ethics of it and you follow friends ordering a takeaway and one of them suggesting that they consent to eating each other (s clones).

A View Worth all the Aqua in the World
Following the protagonist scavenging rubbish sites for something worth a drop of water/aqua which is now the currency. Set in a post-world war 12 reality, animals and trees are assumed to be myths, but you can purchase holograms of trees. She discovers something that has the potential to be worth a life changing amount

Have you heard of this one?

Devouring Tomorrow: Fiction from the Future of Food is a collection of thought-provoking short stories that imagine what the future of food might look like—whether that means lab-grown meat coming to life, a world without bees, or other wild possibilities shaped by climate change and technology. I enjoyed the mix of humor, horror, and speculation about how we’ll feed ourselves in the years to come.

An anthology speculating on the future of food in this world. From the death of bees and what comes after, over sentient lab-grown meat, to droughts and cannibalism there is a lot of potential futures in here. Most of the story focus on a dystopian view set somewhere in the future, but some are closer to our current reality than others, which was interesting and made the stories feel more different while reading. There is a some repetition, especially with the idea of “food – or a part of food, like vegetables, fruit or cows – has gone extinct due to drought/fungus/pollinator death/plagues/GMOs, how would that look like?”, which made some of the stories feel a bit repetitive after a while, but there where quite a lot of stories I enjoyed and that still made this anthology feel intriguing, such as Succulent, which is told entirely in dialogue, Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions, which features an etiquette for dinner parties of the post-apocalyptic kind, Marianne Is Not Hungry, which is set in the rather near future and features a disordered relationship to food that is not part of any other stories here and Recipe From The Future, which sticks out for its intriguing and weird writing style.
There are also three stories with LGBT+ characters (one lesbian MC, one gay MC and one nonbinary MC for each), which I enjoyed, but I want to give a trigger warning for the story with the nonbinary character as their story is mostly focused around being sexually exploited, misgendered and reduced to their genitalia, which I didn’t find that great to read and for which I chose to lower my rating from 4 stars to 3. I don’t mind sexual violence or transphobia to play a role in a story (look at the world we live in!), but I do not really care for it to be treated to flippantly and without any form of resolution as it was in that story.
All in all, this is an intriguing anthology idea, featuring some great writers and some great ideas and if you enjoy reading about speculative dystopian ideas on our future food this could be an interesting read for you.
As always, you can now find short notes on all the short stories featured, including summaries, some notes on my thoughts and trigger warnings beneath:

*FAV* Pleased To Meet You by Catherine Bush: This is a really fascinating short story about a world of lab-grown meat developing sentience. It is unsettling and really well written, horrifying in a much too realistic way. I loved it.
I Want Candy by Dina Del Bucchia: Restaurant reviews in the future split between one reviewer of high-end restaurants and a reviewer, who cannot afford to dine at any of these places (or actually any places at all). Wonderful illustration of class differences in the future and the author really made Jenny, the rich reviewer, so deeply hateful, it was great to read.
TW: death by fire
*FAV* Succulent by Elan Mastai: A world in which meat is produced from celebrity genes (yum!?) centered around three roommates and their struggles. Told only in dialogue, this is a really fascinating short story and I really liked it. It is messy, it is weird, it has capitalist cannibalism, relationship drama, I adored it.
*FAV* Pollinators by Carleigh Baker: Scientists are trying to find a way to transform farming after bees have disappeared suddenly. Really interesting idea and with a lot of fascinating worldbuilding, this is a short story I really liked.
Time to Fly by Lisa de Nikolits: A post-apocalyptic world where a few rich people survived the atomic world destruction on their cruising yacht. Very emotional and heartbreaking, I really enjoyed the way it dealt with loss and grief through memories of food.
TW: drug use, mass death through nuclear war
A View Worth All the Aqua in the World by Anuja Varghese: A world ravaged by droughts where the survivors earn aqua by scrounging for treasure in the underground. A mother finds an oldtech artifact. A rather typical dystopian sci-fi story, but I liked the main character and her voice, so I liked this short story well enough.
TW: dehydration, mass extinction
You Need A Licence For That by Sifton Tracey Anipare: A woman attends a dinner party in a world where calories are rationed out and pregnancies are something you need to pass an exam for. Very interesting concept and I really enjoyed the uncomfortable party setting here.
*FAV* Novel Suggestions For Social Occasions by Ji Hong Sayo: Set in world where elaborate dinners often end in slaughter, framed by a rule book for proper etiquette for Ladies, this is a really fun story, with lots of fighting. I really enjoyed it!
TW: murder, violence
*FAV* Just A Taste by A.G.A. Wilmot: In a cyberpunk world, where cows have long gone extinct, a woman, who steals and sells memories for the right price, finds herself up against a very powerful man with a seemingly impossible request: Find a memory that contains a burger. Very fun, very messy, very enjoyable!
TW: murder, violence
*FAV* Road by Terri Favro: Two sisters trying to survive in a moth apocalypse. Really great and scary worldbuilding here, this is a short story I could absolutely read more of! I also loved the ending.
TW: animal death, death, poison
Unlimited Dream by Mark Sampson: In a world where food can be grown through dreaming, we follow one dreamer as he slowly becomes more and more enamored with the dream. Haunting and intriguing, but I would have liked to dive deeper into the dream world.
TW: self-harm, mention of starvation, violence
*FAV* Marianne Is Not Hungry by Jowita Bydlowska: A story told through the perspective of an eating disorder as it follows a woman through her relationships. Heartbreaking and sad and especially the ending was tough to read. I really enjoyed this one, especially since it stands out in its intriguing approach to food in this anthology.
TW: cheating, eating disorder, mention of incest, miscarriage, vomit
Lorenzo and the Last Fig by Eddy Boudel Tan: In this story fruit and vegetables were destroyed by a fungus years ago. But now, miraculously, a fig tree has been discovered. This is a heartbreaking story oppressed by fear and governmental oppression, but also with a very hopeful end, which I adored!
Food Fight by Chris Benjamin: A story of farmers fighting for their right to their land and to sell their food after corporate greed and climate change has made most farming impossible. Intriguing concept, but it is also so dark and filled with a lot of misgendering and sexual violence that it took away from the story for me. I also don’t know why the grandpa that sexually assaults people needed to get a narrative voice in the story? Just to misgender Sawyer again, after their cousin already did? Just to think about sexually assaulting them? Really not a plot I needed in here or that I felt add anything to the story or the narrative about food it was trying to tell.
TW: sexual violence, incest, misgendering
The Crane by Jacqueline Valencia: A man struggling with a lot of anxiety imagines what a crane if it gained life and sentience might eat. Intriguing concept and really fun addition to this anthology, which more often features dystopian scenarios of scarcity than this short, but fun tale of horror.
*FAV* Recipe From The Future by Gary Barwing: A quite weird, but intriguing story about eating the future (literally). Told in really short scenes this paints a very strange world, but I enjoyed digging into it.

Jeff Dupois and A. G. Pasquella compiled a collection of short stories looking to answer the following question: As the future unfolds, how will food change and how will it change us? Devouring Tomorrow puts together 16 stories by Canadian writers that mostly present a bleak future full of hardships and considerably short on food.

Other themes explored in this collection are the role of synthetic food, global warming and climate disasters, rampant capitalism, and evil corporations monopolizing everything. But not everything is gloomy and lost forever. Most of these stories have human protagonists that interact with other people. While some of them are surviving in the middle of the apocalypse and biblical days of reckoning, other are trying to get by in dystopian and authoritarian societies. And what most characters have in common is believing in doing the right thing, as little as it is.

Take for instance “Lorenzo and the Last Fig” by Eddy Boudel Tan. The short story’s protagonist is a boy named Lorenzo who had to immigrate to Canada after climate change struck his natal Italy. In the story, the weather has ravaged most of the fruits and animals, turning them into the stuff of legend. One day, however, a fig tree appears in the forest near the town Lorenzo lives. Lorenzo explains how the tree must be taken care of, but no one listens to him. Boudel Tan’s narrative touches on migration, climate change, how non-sensical science and preservation efforts can be at times, and how all this trauma can affect a child. It’s succinct, heart-felt, and made me cry by the end. Lorenzo is the perfect example of hope and trying to do better every day. It also helps he always wears an AC Milan cap. 

The compilation also includes other stories that push the genre to new limits. “Succulent” by Elan Mastai doesn’t present characters, just presents voice. And it doesn’t use dialogues. It’s just like being in the middle of an argument between three people and having no idea how you got there in the first place. Format-wise is refreshing and dynamic, and it pulls you into these people’s lives immediately.

Voice and point of view are other elements these authors lay with, as if the case with “Marianne Is Not Hungry” by Jowita Bydlowska. Here, food is the narrator and villain as the protagonist has a complicated relationship with food and with the act of eating. This short story also brings back the premise of the compilation to the personal and visceral. It’s not always about the greater vision of humankind, but also the role food plays in the private.

The story that closes out the compilation is “Recipe from the Future” by Gary Barwin. To tone veers from fatalistic to hopeful: “All there’ll be will be the future. The future waiting for us to eat it. The future that’s ran out of past and that’s ran out of present.” This story wraps up the vibes of the compilation by showing that we’re headed to a very possible and terrible future due to all the greed and out-of-control consumption. However, we don’t have anything else but the future to look forward to. So now that we have an idea of what could happen, we could try and deviate from that.

Devouring Tomorrow is not only a glimpse into the upcoming times, but also a cautionary compilation of tales. The short stories are immersive, memorable, and very entertaining. Not to mention that it works as a catalogue of current Canadian writers to keep on our radars. So, if you’re looking for a short-and-sweet ride through the future, be sure to give this a go. It’s a marvelous book to invest some time in.

Devouring Tomorrow is an anthology of 17 short stories centring around the theme of food insecurity in the future. I typically love a Black Mirror-esque dystopian story, however, I unfortunately found this collection too strange, largely incoherent and lacking flow. From a group of friends having a conversation about which celebrity to eat for dinner, to somebody talking about what a mechanical crane might eat if it came to life, to a pregnant woman who isn’t allowed to eat too much cake, to a very unnecessarily sad story about an abandoned dog, to a very graphic description of an eating disorder from the point of view of the food. For the most part, these stories left me rather perplexed and bewildered rather than entertained.

There were a few stories in this collection that I was more engaged with, namely, Unlimited Dream, a world where technology allows food to be dreamt up into tangible edible produce, and there were elements of other stories I enjoyed, however, as a whole unfortunately this anthology was a miss for me personally. That isn’t to say others might not really enjoy it though, especially if wacky and weird is your thing! Available from the 22nd April 2025.

Content Warnings: Animal Cruelty, Animal Death, Cannibalism, Death, Death of Parent, Drug Use, Eating Disorder, Violence, Vomit.

Thank you to NetGalley and Publishers Dundurn Press for the chance to read and review this ARC.

3.5/5
This was such an interesting collection of stories. Some dark and some on the lighter side, all had to do with the future of food, in one way or another.
Some of the stories felt a little performative, which made them harder to get into, but others flew by. I would recommend this collection to those into sci-fi, futuristic/dystopian stories.

<i>As the future unfolds, how will food change and how will it change us?</i>

<i>Devouring Tomorrow</i> is the first short story collection that I've ever read fully. And it is truly filling. The stories I enjoyed the most are the first and last one of the anthology ("Pleased to Meet You" and "Recipe from the Future"), sandwiching the rest of the more or less tasty literary morsels between them. (I cannot resist the food puns, I'm sorry.)

If I were to rate each story individually, this might fall somewhere closer to 3 stars, but the concept itself, and the ideas behind some of the stories, raise my rating to a solid 4. I especially enjoyed the wide range of formats and voices for the stories: musings about the nature of being by sentient lab-grown meat, a scathing critique of food scarcity in a class-demarcated society told through restaurant reviews, a dialogue between three people negotiating their relationship while choosing whose celebrity's cloned flesh they should have for dinner, the internal monologue of food waiting for an anorexic woman to consume it. I was a bit less interested in the more "conventional" stories, but almost all of them contained something that made me ponder the world and our relationship to food and consumption.

<i>There's nothing so unsavoury or unsavioury as the present.</i>

Thank you to Netgalley for providing a digital copy of this book for review consideration.

This was an interesting mix of stories involving food and the future. Some of the stories were eye-openers and a creepy sneak preview of what the future could possibly hold and it's a bit unsettling! My favourite story was Just A Taste though there a few gems in there. Others weren't as good and I found these disjointed or missing the mark. But all in all, a recommended read. Thank you for the ARC!

Unfortunately, I was not a fan of this collection. The concept is cool, and I think I just expected a lot more weirdness based on the cover. Many of the stories are relatively straightforward dystopias or post apocalyptic settings. Some of them feel like the concept of future food is shoehorned into a story that really wanted to be something else.

The ones I did enjoy:
1. I Want Candy - told in restaurant reviews, a feud between a couple people over the excess of the rich.
2. Succulent - told entirely in dialogue, three friends discuss what food to order, and it is, of course… strange. 🙂
3. Just a Taste - this guy REALLY wants a burger and the woman tasked with getting it goes to great lengths to fulfill the request.
4. Unlimited Dream - one of the more bizarre stories involving dreaming up food, but it gets real dark and weird.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Devouring Tomorrow is a collection of food centered fiction about the future. There are a lot of fascinating concepts gathered in these pages, but I only fell deeply in love with a small number of the stories.

A View Worth All the Aqua in the World, and Just a Taste were my absolute favorites from the collection.

This was a super fun read. Some of these short stories would kill it as full sci-fi novels, honestly. There were some that were kind of funny, most were very bleak, and there was a tad bit of hope sprinkled on the edge, but not enough to get over some of the creepiness factor.

Food scarcity, soil health, real food Vs government approved/issued food, pollinators, everything you can think of is discussed. Some I was blazing through because they were so interesting, but a couple dragged on and weren’t fulfilling.

Overall, worth the read for sci-fi and dystopian book lovers!
Thank you, NetGalley, for the great ARC!

It's one of the best books I have stumbled upon in 2024, I mean as a classic and mythology fan, I was served. The book not only convinced me how the food shortage is gonna occur in the next few decades, but also how as humans, we will be using concepts like cannibalism just to satisfy our hunger. I loved the approach of philosophically questioning hunger and integrating it into scientific researches to cure the food shortage. I was intrigued reading about how each author was successful in explaining the same theme in their unique way. Some used short story approach while some used the literary essay approach, but none of them made it full of information, so it may end up as a boring narrative.

I mean, I could recommend this book to everyone who wants to read about a possible post apocalyptic world, specially going around one of the most poignant human need, hunger. All the authors used an interactive language, easy to understand narrative and beautifully portrayed their ideas. I saw no mistakes or sink holes in story that may make the reader confused.

Devouring Tomorrow: Fiction from the Future of Food, an anthology curated by Jeff Dupuis and A.G. Pasquella, imagines a future where food scarcity is the norm due to various forms of environmental destruction. I want to start this review by stating that I feel like I have so rarely read an anthology of short fiction that feels so tightly edited and knitted together like Devouring Tomorrow is. Each individual story is unique and each world within these brief pages feels distinct, and I as a reader had no problems immersing myself into each world. I continually came out of nearly every story commenting to myself that I couldn't believe how developed these short pieces of fiction felt with so little space to do so.

Each story felt intelligently crafted, leaving me with feelings of conflict and uncertainty where I continually asked myself "what is the right thing to do in this circumstance?" I particularly loved how these stories pushed the boundaries of normal society in ways that felt realistic. Each universe within is obviously a "doomsday scenario," but not everything felt black and white, and the various main characters and antagonists ranged from petty influencers to actual political or business partners to renegades and "rogues."

My main criticism however comes to how much focus was put onto being "inside" the world of affluency rather than outside of it. Many of the characters were those who came from the bourgeoisie or upper classes who were using their affluency and wealth to cheat the scarcity systems, and that was not something I found interesting after a while. In a food insecure future, I have far more interest in seeing how the lower classes deal with scarcity than I do seeing the wealthy take advantage of it. I would have liked to see more stories involving marginalized and disabled parties.

Another criticism I had was how little of the stories gave focus into the agricultural and farming side of food insecurity. I would have loved to have seen one or two more stories that talked about the way farmers and those in the meat industry would have responded to scarcity and insecurity of our food systems. One story did answer the question of what do the poor and homeless do in this scenario, Anuja Varghese's "A View Worth All the Aqua In the World," and it's as harrowing as my own speculations would be. This story was the one that made me feel the most sympathy and empathy for the main character involved.

All that said, two more stories in particular regarding both of my criticisms stuck out to me that have stayed with me as I read Devouring Tomorrow and after I finished it, and those two stories are both inventive and interesting, as well as having morals that are long lasting. Dina Del Bucchia's "I Want Candy" follows a popular food influencer who is experiencing all of these delicious meals and restaurants in a future where very few now can do so, and the story is told through a series of reviews and hate comments this influencer receives. Carleigh Baker's "Pollinators" follows a protagonist working at a gherkin farm where the farmers are trying to domesticate night moths in order to pollinate their fields after the collapse of bees, which results in city officials and citizens revolting against the decision to turn off the electricity for a single evening.

Both stories left me with feelings of anger directed at the different parties involved, as well as sympathy for others that many of the stories didn't quite reach for me. I think these two stories are the stand out stories within this anthology alongside Anuja's piece.

All in all, Devouring Tomorrow is a fascinating collection of speculative fiction that I am absolutely grateful to have had the chance to read early. I find it to be more relevant than ever in our increasingly fraught lives in dealing with climate change.

Thank you to NetGalley, Jeff Dupuis and A.G. Pasquella, each author involved, and Dundurn Press for this advance copy!

Devouring Tomorrow explores the future of food through a mix of speculative stories, but it’s a hit-or-miss experience. While some pieces are engaging and offer fresh perspectives on food scarcity, technology, and culture, others feel underdeveloped and lack the depth to make a real impact. The inconsistency made it hard to stay immersed, though the stronger stories do leave some food for thought. It’s an interesting concept, but the execution didn’t fully deliver for me.

Devouring Tomorrow is a collection of short stories from different authors, in which the fil rouge is represented a dystopic near future in which food runs low. So we have a world in which water is used as currency, another world in which people feed themselves with memories of long lost dishes, another in which people can only assume a certain amount of calories per day, depending on what licence they own, and so on.

But there are also other examples of dystopias that, for me at least, were easier to imagine. For example, the story "Lorenzo And The Last Fig" is set in a world where crops and fruit trees have been virtually exterminated by a bacterium. This is not that far from what happened with olive trees and Xylella fastidiosa in Southern Italy, so we should be aware that, in some cases, we've already reached that point.

I loved to see the different interpretations of the theme from different authors. I believe some stories were clearer than others (especially in the world building). Overall, Devouring Tomorrow is a brilliant antology on a future that is not so distant from our current reality.

(I'd put a TW for ED before "Marianne is not hungry", unless there's one already, in that case I missed it)

I definitely like some of the stories more than others. A few of them may have been beyond me, but it's a very interesting anthology and well worth the read.

Weird. Disturbing. Bleak. A bit hopeful.
An eclectic mix of stories with food (not always, but in some little way) as the center of the narrative. Plot-driven stories. Character-driven stories. Sometimes, a bit of both. And then some that don't follow the conventions of either.

- Pleased to Meet You:
This really sets the tone for the rest of the book.
About sentient lab grown meat (possibly having an existential crisis). It's also introducing itself to the reader.

- I Want Candy:
Set in 2182. Written in the form of online reviews on a platform called Screech. Basically online rants and reviews which reveal that the class divide has only worsened over time. The poor eat shit and the rich eat weird shit.
Weird dates, though. After November 30, 2182, the reviews have a date of November 3, 2182. And the fire at the complex... does it mean one of the characters (Nic B.) is dead? Or is this not important? Is the main focus of the story just the commentary on weird foods and class divide? Because I definitely would have liked to read more. This is too short.
Jenny F. (who lives in Coal Harbour, Vancouver, BC) leaves glowing reviews for these absurd cafes and eateries that have floating tables (or beds instead of tables) and serve weird kinds of foods and drinks with names such as: "Rosemary Honeysuckle Spider Slow Release Soothers with the Web Cream Earl Grey Vape" and "Falmingo Ringo Dingo vape cartridge".
Nic B. (with no know address) is a jobless person who leaves one-star reviews on every restaurant and cafe or whatever bozo place there is in this future and hates Jenny F. and people like her who can waste their time and money on these places while he has to live in a shipping container "condo" with his friend, share a bathroom with 15 people and eat food/rations provided by the government that taste like shit.

- Succulent:
Written entirley in the form of a dialogue between three people who are deciding what to eat. A world where people eat celebrity flesh-flavored dishes. Celebrities who license their genes for the protein synthesizers get paid handsomely for it. Celebrities exist only as an uploaded consciousness for digital performance capture.
Very disturbing.

- Pollinators: Bees have disappeared from the world. Lydia Doss is a scientist working on attracting Tricorn moths (these are night pollinators) to the gherkin fields. There is a fear of world ending in five years. People are panicked and against the scientists who experiment at night and use enough energy for their experiments to cause blackouts in the city.
Also California has got robot bees thanks to some Silicon Valley investors who are going to claim the benefits of their work.
Again, a story with an interesting premise (and a normal human character) that seemed too short and seemed to end rather abruptly.

- Time to fly: Favourite story of the bunch.
A very touching story with a lot of heart set in a bleak world.
Lady Oceanos. A cruise ship with more than 2000 people on board. These people are the few survivors of the Third World War (the superpowers bombed each other with Hydrogen bombs). A 75 year old Elizabeth/Erzsébet reminisces about the past, tries to relive it, and learns to move on.

- A View Worth All the Aqua in the World:
There is dystopian and then there is... whatever the fuck this is. Haunting. Disturbing. Bleak (with, maybe, a tinge of hope). A world you don't want to live in. A desecration of everything beautiful about this beautiful planet of ours. The story is quite good.
Bee discovers an artifact of a civilization long forgotten and hopes to sell it to get some Aqua for herself and her son Gator (Aqua is currency).
There are holographic trees in this world. The story is set sometime after 2425. Cherry Blossoms have gone extinct (in 2425). People consider trees, lakes, and animals a myth. There has been a WW12. Most of the surviving information about pre-WW12 civilizations has been taken Off-World.
People eat something called VN and AquaSub, which have become the world's source of food.

- You Need a Licence for That:
Confusing. Frustratingly confusing.

- Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions:
Action-packed short story with (a sort of) unclear setting (is it a dystopian future or a medieval setting?) and food as surprisingly both a central and unimportant part (or maybe I missed the point). It is a well-written story. Again, too short.

- Just a Taste: Another favourite.
A story of lies, deceit, power, corruption, and murder over... a burger.
So far, this is the story with the most substance. It is not too short, it doesn't overstay it's welcome. It's in that perfect balance where you are satisfied with the one story that is told and interested in knowing more of the world.
A world that is detailed and interesting. A world with themes that are similar to the other stories in this collection, yet just different enough to stand out on it's own and distinguish itself from the other stories.

- Rubber Road:
A post apocalyptic survival of the fittest story with good character focused writing. Also, I've never read such descriptions of the sky before: colour of lemon tea, shade of cat piss and colour of an old bruise.

- Unlimited Dream:
Inception-like concept of dreams mixed with hunger, desire, a want for better life and the lies we tell ourselves to get there. A very good story.

- Marianne is Not Hungry:
Horror. Not the jump-scare kind. But a sort of body horror. Excellent story. Also, I think this does a better job with the narration than the first story (Pleased to Meet You) about sentient meat.

- Lorenzo and The Last Fig:
A good sad/happy story with beautiful prose style.

- Food Fight:
This is one fever dream of a story. Very character-driven, not much plot.

- The Crane:
A story that captures anxiety and overthinking perfectly. Also, one of the few (or maybe the only one) stories in this collection that benefits from being shorter in length than an average short story (it's only 5 pages long) and it works splendidly for the overcrowding thoughts of our main (and only) character.

- Recipe from the Future:
What the fuck was that? Madness. Sheer madness is what this story is. Madness from the lack of food. A fever dream of a story (or more of a rambling, really).

Author(s):
Jeff Dupuis (Editor)
A. G. Pasquella (Editor)

1. Catherine Bush (Pleased to Meet You)
2. Dina Del Bucchia (I Want Candy)
3. Elan Mastai (Succulent)
4. Carleigh Baker (Pollinators)
5. Lisa de Nikolits (Time to Fly)
6. Anuja Varghese (A View Worth All the Aqua in the World)
7. Sifton Tracey Anipare (You Need a Licence for That)
8. Ji Hong Sayo (Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions)
9. A. G. A. Wilmot (Just a Taste)
10. Terri Favro (Rubber Road)
11. Mark Sampson (Unlimited Dream)
12. Jowita Bydlowska (Marianne is Not Hungry)
13. Eddy Boudel Tan (Lorenzo and The Last Fig)
14. Chris Benjamin (Food Fight)
15. Jacqueline Valencia (The Crane)
16. Gary Barwin (Recipe from the Future)

Publisher: Dundurn Press
Publication Date: April 22, 2025.

A collection of short stories by Canadian authors on the theme of food and climate change. I liked some, a couple I did not connect with the storytelling. However, the overall concept was terrifying and thought provoking.